Movie locations

[LizzieMaine]

Most of "Intolerance" was shot in East Hollywood, and there's a mall standing on the spot today, designed to recall the Babylon set --

 

[BlueTrain]

I don't know about Intolerance. But I have read that the set for the first Ben Hur, I think it was (a silent), was destroyed and bulldozed over but was later dug up as an archeological dig--or maybe not.

Many, if not most movies were filmed either on a studio backlot or a movie ranch. The ones in L.A. proper are nothing like they once were because of development. Yet they are still being built. The one that comes to mind is Walt Disney's Golden Oak Ranch. I think Gene Autry's Melody Ranch is still used for Westerns. There is a new "town" at Golden Oak Ranch for small town and suburban scenes. Those are all for outdoor shots. I still find indoor scenes in little cafes, lunch counters, bars and "lounges" (a bar with more padding in the booths) to be interesting. And I'm still fascinated with scenes in apartment building penthouses, that always have a bar in the living room and a convenient parking space right in front of the building. Extra points when the apartment is named something "Arms."

 

[LizzieMaine]

Griffith lost his shirt on "Intolerance," and couldn't afford to tear the sets down. They stood on Sunset Boulevard as rotting ruins for nearly four years until they finally burned down in 1919.

Cecil B. DeMille learned from that experience when he shot "The Ten Commandments" in 1922 -- he built his sets out in the desert, and when he was done, he buried everything in the sand and left it. Archaeologists have recently uncovered several impressive plaster sphinxes and other artifacts at the site.

 

[BlueTrain]

Oh, so it was the Ten Commandants!

 

[MikeKardec]

Cecil B. DeMille learned from that experience when he shot "The Ten Commandments" in 1922 -- he built his sets out in the desert, and when he was done, he buried everything in the sand and left it. Archaeologists have recently uncovered several impressive plaster sphinxes and other artifacts at the site.

[/QUOTE]

Those are actually coastal dunes not far from Lompoc and Vandenberg AFB. Some of the sets from The Greatest Story Ever Told were build in an area adjacent to Monument Valley just before it was flooded to form Lake Powell for similar reasons. In that case George Stevens made sure not only that no one ever again filmed on his sets but the entire landscape disappeared along with them!